To Monreal and a vulcano museum

We get Esmee out of school at the beginning of the afternoon and she has her travel bag ready and looks forward to the holiday. During the ride that changes a bit because we have not been so far away away and she doesn't like long drives. Are we there yet? Is it still far? Going on vacation she loves, but travelling not, unlike us. It helps that Elisabeth occasionally alternates with her and she can sit in the front. We have put a dvdplayer in the back of the car but after 2 hours she gets bored with that, too. But luckily she still falls asleep regularly.

At night a lot of new snow has fallen and we have to dig out the car first. That is quite a job because as you can see on the photograph. The park is located on a hill and we are quite high on it. When we can finally get on the road, we have to drive down carefully. But of course we also played nicely in the snow and fed the birds some bread.

We gave Esmee a camera as a gift and she is experimenting a lot with it. She has just about photographed all the objects in the house and here is the sweet pepper on her plate.
In this way she has a nice new hobby and we try to teach her something about how you can look at things to photograph them, but in the first instance she mainly enjoys recording as much as possible. But fortunately, she quickly finds out how to throw away bad or failed photos.

We first go to Monreal, a beautiful village east of us that we have read about. On the way we have to wait a while for the carnival parade through a village and we step out to look. The theme seems to be Great Britain because most cars have an English look and we even see this Scottish castle with people in kilts.

On the main road you drive easily past the village of Monreal but it is worthwhile to park the car at the end of the village and walk through the medieval center. The houses are German craftsman's houses that have been well restored and maintained and most of them date back to the 15th century.
On the left a photo that Esmee made from the river that flows through the village. In one way or another most of her pictures today are skewed, she has to get used how to hold the device. But in the end she makes more photos than we do.

The old center is not very big and easy to walk and certainly worth a visit, whatever the weather. this village is also called the best kept secret of the Eifel and it is certainly charming and picturesque, a word that we do not use quickly.
In the 14th century Monreal was already a prosperous village and a weekly market was held although it did not officially receive market rights until 1642. Later it became an important center of textile industry.

The houses are well maintained but you can see that they are very old, the walls sometimes bulge and no house is the same. in 1306 the town already got city rights and two fortresses were built to protect it.
The most beautiful part of the village is around the river Elz and we keep taking pictures, especially the places near the bridges are very beautiful.

The ruins of the castles Löwenburg and Philipsburg are located on a hill just outside the village and you can go there by a staircase and steep roads but we find it a bit too slippery with the snow and we stay down in the village. We will encounter more castles in this area and have a closer look another time.

We see beautiful courtyards and occasionally other tourists but otherwise it is suspiciously quiet in the village. There are several shops but most are closed even though it is at the beginning of Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, we still find a restaurant where we can drink something but also warm up a bit.

Well, Esmee does not know what she should do first: she wants to stroke the cat that revolves around her, but of course photos have also to be made. A living animal that come to you is of course much more interesting than all those houses and views that grandpa and grandma like so much. But when she sees a window just above the street she is very curious and kneels down to look inside.
Although the village became impoverished in the 19th century, it has now re-emerged as a tourist attraction, and in summer it is much busier and more lively than it is today.

After this visit to Monreal we drive to Mayen where we visit the Lava Dome volcano museum. There are more than 200 volcanoes in the Eifel and the last eruptions are relatively geologically recent, some 10,000 years ago. In this museum we learn all about it and for children there is a department where you can do all kinds of experiments, like for example letting a volcano erupt.

There is also a cinema where a lively demonstration is given with a lot of noise and vibrations how things have gone in the past in this area with all those volcanic eruptions. At first Esmee thinks it is exciting but after a few minutes it gets very scary and she crawls on my lap. It is all a bit too realistic.

Nearby is the Eifel Museum in the Genoveva Castle where we learn more about what the Eifel used to look like, how the people lived there and about the myths and legends in this region. But the best thing is the slate mine, a tunnel labyrinth 16 meters below the castle. On 2 January 1945 about 4,000 inhabitants hid here for the Allied air strikes, which caused them to survive. In the corridors much of objects of that time are exhibited alongside fossils and everything about slate processing.
En wel stoer dat we zo'n helm op krijgen!

After all these visits it is time to have something to eat and relax and that is what we do on the square in the center of Mayen. We have seen and done a lot today and after a nice meal (schnitzel with bratkartoffeln) we drive back to our house at the end of the afternoon. The roads in the park are reasonably clean again and we get up the mountain without difficulty.